Florence - Marino Marini Museum Museo Marino Marini

The first museum in Florence to show modern art, this museum was installed in 1988 in the redundant church of San Pancrazio for the work of the Tuscan artist and sculptor Marino Marini (1901-1980).

The much modified church's façade is basically 14th c. but also has many features identified with Alberti, the architect who carried out a great deal of alterations for the Rucellai family between 1457 and 1467 and was also responsible for the Rucellai Chapel.

Having spent many years as a tobacco factory and then most recently an army depot, the church started undergoing conversion in the early 1980s supervised by renowned architects Lorenzo Papi and Bruno Sacchi, who have made the building, with its enmeshing of stairs and galleries and combined effect of woodwork, cast concrete and iron struts, a highly successful setting for the works of art on display.

The museum holds 176 of Marini's graphics, drawings, paintings and sculptures, many of them bequeathed to the city of Florence before his death. Beginning with the picture of the "Maidens" in 1916 they span all his themes and creative periods and obviously include many variations of his famous figures on horseback. Whereas the early works show the horse mostly at ease with mankind, after the 1940s it is bucking and rearing in an effort to dislodge its rider. Marini's other favorite themes included "Pomona", an ample fertility goddess, and images of dancers and clowns.